


He Always Goes First

by babywarg (morphaileffect)



Series: Ironstrange Bingo [12]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Drama, M/M, One Shot, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 04:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18985474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/babywarg
Summary: [Second Person POV] Stephen views the many outcomes to the fight with Thanos on Titan, and goes back to view some again - the ones where he and Tony are happy.





	He Always Goes First

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly have no idea who's talking here. Could be Stephen talking to himself. Could be some higher power watching him torture himself repeatedly. Take your pick :D
> 
> For the Ironstrange Bingo square "Last."

You know the rules.

You can see every possible future, all the way up to where your life ends.

In every possibility, he goes first. Blame his heroic, self-sacrificing, very mortal nature. There is no future where he doesn't go ahead of you, one way or another.

In some, you watch him die. In some, he dies in your arms. In some, you feel him dying even if he’s far away.

Of this you are certain:

In every possibility, Thanos wins, and you lose.

There’s only one future where you can possibly “win” –

\- the one where you die first.

The one where you give up the Time Stone. Where Thanos snaps his fingers once, and half the universe dissolves into dust, including you.

What happens after that?

You don’t know.

In the face of such uncertainty, it stands to reason…

That you would take refuge in some of the outcomes that you _do_ know.

 

***

 

Life #65,237. You don’t give up the stone. You change your mind about meeting Thanos on Titan, and open a portal back to Earth. There, you take Vision, yourself and a number of other heroes away to another dimension, where you can work on extracting the Mind Stone in safety and relative peace.

With just four Infinity Stones, Thanos conquers the universe anyway. But the Avengers fight. They do what little they can to hold Thanos back from the Earth, fighting until their last breath.

Soon destruction of the Earth is imminent. And Tony, who is with you in another reality, refuses to abandon the one the two of you were born into.

“I can’t let Thanos destroy the Earth,” he says.

“I can’t let Thanos have the Time and Mind Stones,” you answer. So you have to stay.

By this time, you’ve figured it out: no matter how good the life you’ve built around each other has been, he will always want to go home.

So he goes first.

And doesn’t return.

You follow him back into this realm, eventually. You bring the last two Infinity Stones with you. You place them in the care of a cosmic superpower known as Adam Warlock, who has newly rebelled against his creators.

“These are heavy,” Adam Warlock says to you, as he accepts the Stones. “With grief for those who have gone before.”

You tell him nothing.

But it is a foolish gamble from the start. With just two Stones against Thanos’ four, not even this mighty, godlike creature could win.

 

***

 

Life #700,886. You entrust the Time Stone to Carol Danvers. She takes it to the far reaches of the universe, and in so doing manages to keep Thanos at bay for years.

In the meantime, Thanos’ armies bombard the Earth. He uses the Stones that he has to grow his army into an unstoppable force, and he has trained some of it onto the powerful Avengers – determined to wipe them out before they could pose any further threat.

Tony Stark never has a moment’s peace to think of a way to defeat Thanos. He’s too busy putting up defenses, too busy bearing the weight of saving the world, too busy fighting, fighting, fighting.

And in every future where this happens, no matter how much you try to help, he goes first.

“I’m so tired, love,” he tells you in this possibility, his voice shaking and weak.

“Hush,” you whisper. Then you lie, “We’ll be okay. You can rest now.”

Shortly after Tony closes his eyes for the last time, Thanos’ forces lay waste to the Earth.

And soon, Thanos captures the Time Stone, snaps his fingers, and everything fades to black for you.

It takes you a few visits to this future before the weight in your chest goes away.

Why?

 

 

***

 

Life #11,672,029.

You keep coming back to this one.

You don’t give up the Time Stone. Thanos proceeds to ravage the universe.

You hide. Not in another dimension. There are still small corners of this universe where Thanos can’t get to you, and you make one of them your home.

It becomes a true Sanctum – an untethered, magical space where the Avengers, and other heroes of the Earth, take refuge from the ruins of their home world, their many defeats, and lick their wounds, recover their courage.

Tony Stark is often here.

In some futures, Thanos finds this place. In this one, he doesn’t.

Tony grows tired of visiting, and decides to stay.

You stay together for many years.

Long and happy years.

You and Tony stay, as friends come and go, as newer, younger heroes find your hiding place and fall to Thanos and fail to return.

Both known as Masters of the Sanctum, you and Tony grow old and gray together.

You’ve seen this over and over.

So these tears in your eyes don’t make sense.

The regret you feel for not doing more with the time you had, for not being able to delay the inevitable, for not cherishing the very last time he said “good night, love”…

They don’t make sense.

There are some rules you can’t break, some games you can’t win.

You already know this.

Yet you keep coming back, and the weight in your chest returns each time.

Soon you will have to open your eyes again. To return to the present. To seal your fate in the hope that _the one and only future where you go first_ will lead the Avengers to victory.

But before that happens, you come back to this: the very last ending, the very last way of losing him, that you want to see.

He doesn’t get up ahead of you today. He lays beside you on the bed that you share, not moving.

There should be no pain, no fear for you, not when you know how it's all going to end. And yet...

“Tony. Love...? Wake up. Please.”


End file.
